Remember the Breathing Thing
by Shuggie
Summary: Cartman ponders the alleged brilliance of his latest scheme while Wendy engages in the worst sort of physical labor. CxW oneshot


**Ok, I figured it wouldn't kill me to put up a new SP fic. So yay. This was originially going to be another teen years Cartman/Wendy Stan/Kyle fic, but my mind wandered last night and the plot completely and totally changed. Like 99 percent. The only bit that stayed the same was the Cartman/Wendy aspect. XD So I'm not really sure if I like this story or not. Also forgive me for the crappy title. But yall decide and please remember to review! **

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Eric Cartman was, decidedly, a genius. Only a genius could have ever accomplished the things he had. Only a genius could comprehend the brilliance behind his schemes. Only a genius could even begin to mold events together the way he had. Yes, Cartman was a genius, as could be seen from so many of his complex plans: the Scott Tenorman situation, the church he'd founded to get ten million dollars, hiding Butters away for a week, his near destruction of _Family Guy_, his eradication of the hippies. The list went on and on. 

Although he was likely one of the smartest men on the planet, he still had no idea how he had gotten himself into the situation he was currently in. It was ridiculous. He had thought long and hard about every twist and turn his actions could lead him down. He had sat down and pondered all the consequences and even discussed them with a few choice, trusted others. He had planned everything down to the most minute and discrete detail.

So why was it that he was suddenly thinking this might have been a bad idea?

"CARTMAN," a shrill female voice screamed. Cartman winced as a hand flew at his head. It struck, and somehow he resisted his natural reaction of cursing violently. Later, he would be proud of his willpower. "Cartman," she screamed again. She was definitely angry. She only referred to him by his last name when she was blinded by rage. Cartman took a brief second of astonishment to notice his balls hadn't been ripped off and stuffed for display yet.

"I am going to murder you," the growling female continued to rant. "I am going to display your head over my fireplace!" Cartman believed she'd do it. She wasn't above murder. "I will have you stuffed like a fucking bear!" Cartman raised a brow. That might be a little out of character. She didn't like it when animals were displayed like that. Damn hippie.

"You need to clam down," he said, not letting the nervousness he was feeling on the inside show in his voice. Nervousness wasn't an acceptable feeling for Eric Cartman to have.

"I fucking am calm," she snarled, baring her teeth in a dangerous manner. Cartman frowned. God damn, he would have loved to snap back at her, but someone would hit him, probably her. She could punch like a fucking kangaroo or something.

"Please, ma'am," a nurse said entering the room with requested medicines. "He's right. You need to remember the breathing." She administered the medications and checked a few things before walking quickly from the room.

Cartman stared after the older woman with an almost pleading glance. Two slim hands grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked him forward. Cartman was met with the blazing chocolate eyes of one Wendy Testaburger, well formerly. "Why are you staring at her," Wendy snarled.

Cartman blinked and answered, "I want her to stay in here so that the chances of you mauling me are cut down."

"Why would I maul her," Wendy asked calmly. Cartman blinked. It was coming in just a few seconds. He counted down in his head as Wendy screamed, "She didn't fucking stick a baby in me!"

"Ey!" Cartman retorted, "I didn't do that alone. It takes two to tango, ho." Wendy drew in a sharp breath, and Cartman almost cringed. She was going to claw him with her carefully manicured talons. He blinked. The attack wasn't coming.

Instead, Wendy was blinking up at him with large, wet eyes. _God fucking damn it_, Cartman snarled in his head. There she went again. "How could you say that," Wendy sniffled. "I thought you loved me," she sobbed loudly, throwing herself onto his chest and bawling at the top of her shrill hippie lungs. Cartman grimaced and patted her back a few times.

Cartman lifted his honey brown eyes as the delivery room door opened. The doctor walked in. Cartman eyed him warily as he checked Wendy. He hated this. He hated this so fucking much. Sick bastard, staring at Wendy like that. Wendy had hit him for his jealous rants on several occasions, so Cartman kept his jaw firmly locked. He didn't want to set her into another rage. She pissed him off when she was ranting.

"Contractions are getting closer together," the doctor said. As if on queue, Wendy began yelling again. Cartman let out a strangled noise as she shook him. After a few seconds, she calmed down again and took to gripping his hand as she whimpered.

The doctor chuckled a little. "What's so funny, asshole," Cartman snapped, glaring fiercely. The doctor coughed into his hand and looked away. Cartman had punched him in the nose the first time he had looked down at Wendy, and the doctor certainly didn't want a repeat of the incident.

Cartman, satisfied that the doctor wasn't about to make any smartass comment back, turned his eyes back to Wendy. She had his hand in a death grip between her own. As he did every time he held her hand, Cartman marveled at the difference in size. His hand was monstrous in comparison to hers. He was sure he could crush all of her bones if he squeezed hard enough. He wondered if his hands would still seem so big if he were slimmer. He stroked her knuckles with his thumb. He could almost feel her smile. Cartman didn't often show signs of affection when there were other people around.

Another contraction hit, and Wendy whimpered. She leaned heavily into Cartman's arms, clinging to him. Cartman kissed the top of his wife's head.

His wife.

Sometimes it still amazed him. He and Wendy had been married for five years now, but he still wondered why someone as amazingly beautiful as Wendy Testaburger had chosen someone like Eric Cartman. Wendy had often said that physical appearance didn't matter to her, but Cartman knew better. She was a chick. Chicks always paid attention to how guys looked. But he knew Wendy was insanely attracted to his ambition and drive. Cartman and Wendy were very similar in those aspects. Both were never scared to go to extremes to see that their goals were accomplished. Both had conspired to have people killed for getting in their way. And nothing turned Cartman on like seeing Wendy's eyes light up with her raging fire, as long as it wouldn't result in him getting punched in the face.

Wendy was driven and had very ambitious goals. She wouldn't let anyone stand in the way of those goals. Cartman would never ask her for fear of the answer, but he often wondered what she would choose if necessary, politics or her husband. But that drive Wendy had had always been something Cartman was attracted to ever since they were kids. She was almost, if not just as, motivated as he was. Cartman had never met another girl, or even person, with the amount of ambition as he had, and he knew he would never have been able to have been with someone who was lacking in that area.

Cartman and Wendy's relationship was an odd one. While on one hand, they seemed perfect for each other, on the other, everyone who knew them was constantly surprised that they hadn't killed each other off yet. They argued more than Arabs and Jews. But Cartman would have to admit, the make up sex made every infuriating word the hippie screamed at him worth it. In fact, he often picked fights so that they could make up later. He knew she did it too. There wasn't a lot he wouldn't do to have sex with her.

But of course, it had been over three months since the last time they had done it. Cartman was definitely going crazy. He knew it would be even longer still. Women could hold out far longer than men. They were like damn camels. Wendy would be far more concerned about taking care of the kid than doing her womanly duty to her husband for a while.

Cartman's eyes drifted down to the large bump that was Wendy's stomach. It would be flat again in a few hours. He bit his bottom lip, his eye brows knitting together. In a few hours he was going to be a father. He and Wendy would be parents. They would have a baby.

And therein lay all of Cartman's problems. He could handle all the fucked up situations that seemed to follow him even though he had moved away from South Park. He could handle Kenny hammering him for money every few months or Kyle being a dirty Jew or Stan's continued emoness despite the fact that they were nearing thirty. He could handle falls in stocks or issues within the company. He could handle Wendy's mood swings. He could probably handle the end of the earth. But he didn't know if he could handle a baby.

Cartman didn't pretend to know anything about children. He had cousins that were many years younger than him, but when he had been told to baby-sit them and they were bad, he'd just hit them with a stick. And growing up in South Park hadn't exactly taught him how to be a good role model for children. The adults had always been incompetent. He and his asshole friends had been more mature and in charge of situations than the parents had. The adults had always just formed pitchfork wielding mobs or threw responsibility onto people even more incompetent than themselves.

Cartman personally had never had even remotely decent parental figures. While the other parents had definitely been stupid, they had at least had rules for their children and morals to teach them. There were no rules in the Cartman house. Cartman had whined until they were all taken down. His mother had done anything he asked, and he had rarely received any forms of punishment for any of his actions. Sure, he had been grounded, but it had only been in name. He had still gone out and played, watched TV, and anything else he had wanted. He was spoiled and knew it. He had exploited it. As a child, he'd whined until he'd gotten everything he wanted. As he got older, he had simply begun to outsmart his mother at every turn and go behind her back. She was like putty in his hands to be molded as he pleased.

But she was never a role model. She was a crack whore. Of course, anyone else who said that would get kicked in the nuts, but Cartman knew it. He'd accidentally seen too many pictures, videos, and heard testimonies to not know. It hadn't really hit him how big of a slut his mother was until trying to find out who his father was. Dumb bitch had boned everyone in town the night of the 12th Annual Drunken Barn Dance.

But of course, Wendy was the baby's mother, not him. He didn't need to know how a mother was supposed to act toward a baby. He needed to know how a father should act. But he honestly didn't know. He'd never had a father figure before. He could only look at the examples of his asshole friends. Stan's dad was an idiot, a complete and utter moron. Sometimes, when Cartman wasn't involved in the situation, it was funny because his father was a constant source of embarrassment to Stan. And Cartman did love to see Stan miserable. Then there was Kenny's father. The thought was almost laughable. Kenny's dad was a poor, drunk, lazy piece of crap. In short, he was everything Cartman wasn't. Last, there was Kyle's dad. Cartman couldn't hold back a grimace. He would never look to a Jew for any sort of advice.

Cartman hadn't even admitted it to even Wendy, who was by far his closest confidant and only real friend, but he was scared. He was terrified of the tiny thing that would soon be pushing its way out of his wife. The rational part of his brain argued that there was no reason at all for him to be scared. He'd seen babies and had even held Kenny's little boy a few times while he'd been an infant. They were tiny, weak little things. There was nothing they could do. They were helpless, posing no sort of threat to anyone.

But the irrational part of his brain seemed to be taking over. As Wendy's pregnancy had begun drawing to an end, Cartman had become more and more on edge. Over the last few weeks, he had fired a number of good employees while in bad moods. Usually he just threatened to fire them, using their fear and nervousness as a way to make him happy again.

This little baby would be his responsibility. He would be caring for it. He would be spending his hard earned money on someone that wasn't him or occasionally his wife. Cartman would have to protect it and teach it. He would have to be there for it when it was sad or hurting. He would have to change diapers and make bottles and sacrifice hours of much needed sleep. What if he failed in his job of raising it? What if he wasn't a good father?

Another contraction hit Wendy, and she began to yell and curse louder than before. The doctor scrambled over. "Not yet," he said.

Wendy squeezed her eyes closed. Her face was turning a bit red, and her nails dug into the skin of Cartman's hand. After the wave of pain had subsided, Wendy fell back into the pillows of the bed. Her eyes opened, and she turned to glare at Cartman more fiercely than he had ever seen her glare at anyone.

"You," she hissed. "You did this to me! I hate you! I hate you so much!"

"Ey!" Cartman yelled back. They didn't need to get into this again.

"Get out of here," Wendy yelled, pointing forcefully at the door. "Leave! I don't want to see you! I hate you!"

"The hell," Cartman asked. Wendy pushed him away from her, yelling shrilly all the while. The nurse walked over and took Cartman's arm. She led the dumbfounded man from the delivery room. "What the hell are you doing, bitch," Cartman finally asked when they had gotten into the hallway.

"You wife doesn't want you in the room right now," she answered simply.

"Like hell," Cartman snapped. He shook her off his arm and moved to enter the room again. He jumped back when Wendy hurled the baby bag, which contained some rather heavy objects, at his head. The nursed pulled Cartman back and snapped the door shut.

"You need to go to the waiting room, Mr. Cartman," she said patiently.

"But that's my wife," Cartman insisted.

"I know, sir."

"She's having our baby!" Cartman yelled, his eyes flashing. What was this bitch's problem?

"I know, sir," she repeated. "And your wife does not want you in the room right now." Cartman blinked at the door. "I assure you nothing's wrong," the nurse continued. "It's very, very common for women to say those sorts of things during delivery. It's also common for them to throw the father from the room."

Cartman stared dumbly at the door as the nurse gently led him down the hallway. Wendy didn't want him in there with her? The nurse dropped him off at the waiting room and hurried back. Cartman was left standing. He didn't know what to do. He just stared blankly down the hall, his jaw hanging a bit loose.

"Eric," a voice called. Cartman didn't register the many footsteps coming towards him. He didn't pay any attention to the people crowding around him. "Eric?" A hand fell on his shoulder, but he didn't look over at the owner. He just gawked down the hall.

Two hands began to shake his shoulders, and he finally let his eyes fall on Kenny. "Eric, what's going on? How's the baby?" Kenny was the only one of his friends who called him by his given name. All the other assholes called him Cartman, as they had done since before any of them could remember.

Cartman just blinked at his friend. "Well, fatass," Kyle said. "Don't keep us in suspense. Boy or girl?" Cartman and Wendy hadn't wanted to know until the birth what the baby's sex was. "Fatass?"

Cartman didn't answer. He couldn't even open his mouth to give Kyle a proper insult. Numbly, he wandered over to a chair and dropped down. He was quickly surrounded again. His mother wrapped her arms around him. Stan and Kyle were giving each other drawn looks. Mrs. Testaburger was leaning back on her husband. Kenny knelt down to Cartman's eye level. "Eric," he asked. Cartman didn't look at him. After a few seconds, Kenny forced Cartman to lock eyes with him. "Eric, what happened?"

Cartman blinked a few times. He opened his mouth, but quickly shut it. He moistened his lips, drew in a breath and muttered, "She kicked me out of the room."

"Dude, I," Kenny started, but then he did a double-take. "Wait, what?"

"She kicked me out of the fucking room," Cartman snapped. The tension of those around him quickly evaporated. Bebe ran a hand over her face and promptly slapped Cartman over the back of his head. "Ey," Cartman yelled. "Don't hit me, whore!"

Bebe frowned. "You had us worried," she snapped back. "You had us thinking something had happened to Wendy or the baby!"

Cartman's face paled. He hadn't even thought about that. There was a possibility that something could happen to one or even both of them. Jesus, he'd die. He'd die without that dumb hippie, and he would never be able to get over something happening to that child. It wasn't even born yet, and already Cartman couldn't imagine not having it, no matter how terrified he was of being a father. Wendy adored children and had wanted so badly to have one. When the doctors had confirmed her pregnancy, Cartman had thought she'd never stop smiling. She had been on top of the world for two straight weeks before her mood swings had begun kicking in. Nothing could bring her down, not morning sickness or her husband acting like a dick. If something happened to the baby, Wendy would never get over it.

Realizing what she had put into Cartman's head, Bebe immediately said, "Nothing's going to happen to them, Cartman. Breathe, dude. You know Wendy, she'll have a perfect delivery no matter whose ass she has to kick." Cartman just nodded, feeling too emotionally drained to do much else. He had already been here for over thirteen hours.

His friends and family settled into the chairs around him. His mother rubbed his back absently to try and soothe him. Kenny's little boy slipped from Bebe's lap and into Cartman's. Cartman blinked at the boy while he showed Cartman the karate chop action Russell Crowe toy Wendy had bought him for his last birthday, explaining all its features in his chirpy little kid voice. "But Daddy broked the noises," he continued. Cartman vaguely recalled that it had once sang songs about fightingif certain buttons were pressed.

It was nearly another hour before the nurse came back into the waiting room. Cartman stood so fast that the little boy in his lap slipped to the floor. He held his breath in anticipation. Bebe quickly picked him up and soothed him before he could start crying. "Mr. Cartman," the nurse said, "you wife—uh—your wife says she would like to see you."

Knowing Wendy, it had been more along the lines of demanding that he get his black ass back there so she could castrate him with a blunt knife and then spill all his blood into the nearest river as a warning to all men who dared impregnate any woman.

Cartman sprinted down the hall as fast as his legs could carry him, leaving the nurse and his friends and family behind without a glance. He ran into his wife's room. The doctor was by her feet, and Wendy was sitting in the bed, her teeth grinding together as she pushed. Her eyes opened and landed on Cartman. "Get over here!" she demanded loudly. Cartman scrambled over obediently. She grabbed hold of his hand with more force than Cartman would have ever thought someone of her size capable of. The doctor ordered her to push again, and Wendy did, slamming Cartman's hand onto the metal bar on the side of her bed. Cartman bit back a particularly nasty curse. His hand was already throbbing, and at the very least would be heavily bruised. He'd bitch at her about it later.

Wendy continued to yell and cry as she worked on pushing out the baby. Cartman found he could only stare at her with wide eyes and a very dry mouth. Several times he had to remind himself to breath. It wouldn't do Wendy any good if he passed out from lack of oxygen. The doctor asked Cartman at one point if he wanted to watch the baby come out, and Cartman had very nearly had a heart attack. Looking back, he was positive his heart had stopped for a full five seconds. He was also offered the opportunity to cut the umbilical cord, which Cartman could only describe as weak. Very, very weak.

Wendy let out a strangled scream and collapsed back into the pillows. For a second, Cartman panicked, but then he heard the unmistakable cry of a baby. He looked back at the doctor, who was holding up a tiny infant. The baby was placed into the nurse's waiting arms. She disappeared with it. Cartman stared after her. Where was she going with his baby? He could hear the doctor talking with Wendy, but he couldn't make out the words. But Wendy started whimpering again and doing more pushing. Cartman blinked. What was going on?

After a few minutes, Wendy relaxed again, and the nurse entered the room again with the now clean baby. It was wrapped snuggly in a fluffy pink blanket. Wendy tiredly but eagerly took the infant and cooed down at it. She soon looked up expectantly at Cartman. She smiled. "Honey," she said sweetly, a glowing smile on her face. Cartman blinked. Wendy urged him forward with one hand. "Come here."

Cartman took step forward. He looked down on his radiant wife and baby. "Isn't she beautiful," Wendy breathed.

Had it been any other infant, Cartman would have laughed and made a comment about how it really was just an ugly, red sack of skin. But as he looked down at the tiny face and hand sticking out of the monstrosity that was the very pink blanket, Cartman decided that he had never seen something so beautiful before and likely would never again.

The nurse then told Wendy that it was time to feed the baby. She helped Wendy to lower the neck of her top to give the baby access to her breast. Cartman watched. He hated it so much when women just dropped their tops and let their babies chow down in the middle of malls or restaurants or whatever. They made women's bathrooms for this sort of thing. He'd love to find some way to outlaw public breastfeeding. But for some strange reason, watching Wendy feed the baby wasn't bothering him at all.

When she was done, Wendy covered herself back up and looked to her husband. "Eric, do you want to hold her," she asked. Cartman immediately stiffened. He shot up from the side of the bed and shook his head. Wendy blinked oddly at him. "Eric, what's wrong?"

He shook his head again, his lips pressed in a firm line. "Eric, come here," Wendy said with an authoritive voice. Slowly, Cartman headed back to her bedside. "Sit down." He did so. "Hold out your hands," she commanded in a sugary tone.

"No," Cartman said.

"Why not," Wendy demanded, her voice dropping harshly.

Cartman dropped his eyes from hers and looked at the bundle of blankets. "I—I—what if I hurt her?"

The ice in Wendy's eyes melted. She smiled sweetly at him. "Hold out your hands, honey," she said. Cartman drew in a deep breath and did as she said. Wendy placed the baby in his arms, arranging his hands to support her tiny hand. Cartman stared down at the little thing with wide eyes. Her head was no bigger than his hand. He could have crushed her more easily than Wendy's hand.

His hands shook slightly as he looked down at his daughter. He drew her closer to his chest carefully, more terrified of dropping her than of anything he'd ever encountered before. Wendy wrapped her arms around him. "You're doing fine," she whispered, leaning her head on his shoulder. "Take a few deep breaths, dear." Cartman gulped in some air andsoon handed the baby back to her. He reached down and touched her minuscule hand with his finger. She unfurled her little digits and wrapped them around her father's finger.

"She's so tiny," Cartman said in awe.

Wendy nodded in agreement. "She'll grow."

"We—we made this," Cartman said. "You and me." Wendy leaned up and kissed him. "Holy shit," Cartman muttered as he wrapped his arms around her, and they continued staring down lovingly at the child.

After a while, their friends and family were allowed into the room. Lianne and the Testaburgers took turns passing their granddaughter around. Bebe and Kenny were the first of their friends to hold her. After all, they had been named her godparents. Kenny's son had proclaimed loudly that the little infant was kind of ugly and he didn't know why they were liking her so much. Kenny had flicked his ear.

"Who knew you could make something so cute, fatass," Kyle said and he cooed at the baby over Stan's shoulder. Oddly, Cartman didn't retort with his usual Jew comments. He was just too happy to let anything Kyle had to say bring him down. Stan, being the near woman that he was, was almost reluctant to give the baby back to Wendy. He immediately took to cooing at Kyle about how adorable children were.

"Oh, look," Wendy squealed. Everyone gathered around. The little girl had opened her eyes and was blinking up at them with big blue orbs.

"The hell," Cartman exclaimed. "Her eyes are blue!" Neither he nor Wendy had blue eyes.

Wendy laughed. "Eric, most white babies are born with blue eyes. The color will change in a few days."

"Oh," Cartman said simply. He mentally chastised himself. Wendy would never cheat on him, if not just because she loved him so much but because her morals forbid it. It was actually ridiculous for him to have even thought it, no matter how fleetingly. "Good."

"You dumbass," she laughed.

"Ey," Cartman yelled. "Shut your mouth, ho."

"Don't call the mother of your daughter a ho," Wendy snapped back.

"I'll call whoever I want a ho," Cartman said firmly. "Whatever. I do what I want."

"Well," Kyle muttered to Stan and Kenny, "that didn't take long."

Cartman and Wendy argued loudly for a few more minutes until the baby began to cry. "Now look what you did," Wendy snarled, bouncing her daughter softly.

"What I did," Cartman said. "You're the one who scared her with your hippie bitching!"

"Should we involve the authorities now or later," Stan wondered aloud.

"Mr. and Mrs. Cartman," the nurse exclaimed as she entered the room with the baby's birth certificate to retrieve the names. "Please, you're frightening the child!"

Cartman and Wendy both pointed fiercely at the other. "He started it," Wendy said as Cartman countered, "It's her fault!"

The nurse turned to look at the others in the room. The new grandparents all just shrugged. Bebe laughed as she bounced her son on her hip. "Don't worry. They don't mean any of it. This is how they always act."

"Oh dear," the nurse muttered. "I think I feel sorry for the poor girl."

Stan laughed. To the others he said, "You know, I can already guarantee that she'll be the perfect mixture of Cartman and Wendy."

"My God," Kyle said with wide eyes. "We should start building those bomb shelters you wanted in case the government unleashed flying monkeys with laser guns to invade Colorado."

"You know they have them," Stan insisted. "I mean, why not? The world's thrown everything else at us. Why not flying monkeys with laser guns? And I still maintain that flying monkeys are the most frightening thing ever produced. _The Wizard of Oz_ is an incorrectly labeled horror movie."

"You're retarded," Kenny said. "Hopefully the kids won't have to put up with the crap we did. I really don't think I want to watch Cartman's little girl trying to kill my son every other week to sell his organs to get a million dollars or something."

The three friends turned and watched as the fourth member of their life long group argued fiercely with his wife in soft tones as they held their newborn daughter. Only Wendy and Eric Cartman could ever get away with something like that and still look happier than anyone had ever seen them.

Kenny, at Wendy's request, stood from his chair and walked over towards the door to collect the baby bag she had thrown in her rage at Cartman. In typical Kenny fashion, he tripped over a stray cord and fell straight on top of his son's action figure. The plastic toy tore through his eye, spill blood all over the floor. His son began to cry over the loss of his birthday present, and Stan exclaimed, "Oh my God! They killed Kenny!"

"You bastards!" Kyle finished out of obligation.

"Son of a bitch," Wendy said. "I just bought that toy!" Cartman began to laugh loudly at Kenny's twitching form, clutching his pudgy sides. He was soon joined by the others in the room.

The doctor and nurse merely rolled their eyes as they called for a clean up crew. God, South Park was such a bitch.

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**Hooray for the most craptacular ending in the history of endings. Yeah, I didn't know how to end it and I was watching the chickenpox episode where Kenny dying just sort of ends everything. I think they do that a lot. Yeah, so there yall go. haha, I never gave names to the kids. Oops too late! So justa stupid little story to satisfy my Cartman/Wendy lust for another day. Please review even tho its retarded. **


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